1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the formation of panels of wood by gluing together smaller sized pieces of wood so as to utilize scrap wood materials which would otherwise be discarded and form usable panels therefrom.
2. Description of Related Art
Elmendorf, U.S. Pat. No. 1,428,765, forms sheets of wood from edge-glued wood strips using spacing grids formed by bars. Rails allow the strips to slide on the grids. The grids are used to carry edge-glued strips which are manually placed on each grid. A number of such supporting grids are shaped by stretching and compressing.
Frisch, U.S. Pat. No. 2,526,342, shows edge-bonding apparatus where glue is applied to the edges of the boards on an infeed table. The glued boards are fed into an area where a plurality of horizontal plungers apply pressure across the end of the edge-bonded boards. Upper and lower platens are provided which move into and out of engagement on the boards as same move into the pressurized area of the apparatus. The upper and lower platens apply RF energy to the wood to cure the glue in the gluing operation. FIG. 10 of this patent shows a plurality of plungers utilized in the apparatus. The plungers serve to apply pressure uniformly to the sides of the board already selected for gluing. The plungers do not serve to advance selected boards beyond a predetermined point for further processing.
Schroeder, U.S. Pat. No. 4,195,346, shows an apparatus to sort and classify lumber utilizing a computer programmed to select certain pieces. Schroeder's system selects based on the length and quality of the lumber and develops electrical control signals from these inputs. The control signals indicative of length and quality are fed into a computer programmed to select optimal cut-off length and optimum quality and to feed these selections to cutting or sorting apparatus so that the appropriate operations can be performed on selected pieces of lumber.
The Schroeder system is designed to work in a saw-mill. Schroeder requires and relies on a visual inspection made by a human inspector who manually depresses buttons he selects based on the inspector's judgment made by viewing the boards. The boards so classified by the inspector are transferred on a sorting conveyor. Kickers are provided to knock off the boards so that they are placed in selected bins. Schroeder requires that an operator manually depress buttons indicative of criteria of wood boards which he observes from his inspection station. The computer then, based on preset criteria, compares the results of the signals generated by the depressed buttons with preset information and causes the boards to be conveyed automatically to preselected locations for further processing in the saw-mill.
Marino, U.S. Pat. No. 4,512,840, shows a machine for forming planks by gluing a number of wood fillets together. The planks are obtained from uniform sized wood fillets. Each plank is thirteen fillets wide and several meters long. Marino shows a feed station for the thirteen fillets. As the fillets are all of uniform size, Marino does not require any sizing, selection or processing based on the results of size analysis.